


「Creatures of Comfort; 必然王國」

by yuren



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Determinism (See Note At End) vs. Free Will, Did I Bastardize Multiple Concepts For Ushijima Semi-Angst?, F/M, Light Angst, Philosophical Motifs, and i made ushijima cry :(, i will see myself out now :(, yes i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26340010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuren/pseuds/yuren
Summary: Ushijima is a man of creature comforts: volleyball, strength, and you. It’s so simple that he didn’t realize he has become the warden of his own gilded cage.
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70
Collections: cry? or not ;)





	「Creatures of Comfort; 必然王國」

**Author's Note:**

> **a/n:** this is the result of being in some weird headspace. the content and motif of this fic is probably not fluffy. it’s not **angst** angst nor is it dark, but i wouldn’t recommend reading this if you’re just starting your day or have had a tiring one :( in that case, please drink some water and take a well-deserved rest ♡♡♡
> 
>  **song rec:** [freedom - yoga lin (covered by silence wang + aaron yan)](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpHYGgCfhiXw&t=MjA4YjdjODA3Y2U1Yjc4OGE5ZjZjMWRlZDk3Y2ExYmU3MWE1MTliYSw0NjBjMDRjZjg5NjA0NGEzYTdlMmE4YTAzOGRlZGM0Zjc4MTNmZjg5)

Ushijima is a creature of three comforts. First, volleyball is a given. 

It might not be obvious, but he does harbour a deep love for the sport. Others say the expression of this love is difficult for him but Ushijima maintains that his passion speaks the loudest through actions rather than pretty words. After all, Lady Luck favours diligence not rhetoric. 

And he’s always practiced diligently. He practiced so his left would serve him some use; he practiced so his father could stay by him. Ushijima practiced and practiced until he’s reached the top. 

But it is hard, even for such a man as Ushijima Wakatoshi. Every once in a while, he doubts. This usually happens when he’s alone at the summit. 

It’s a summit that only he can see. The ascent had been simple, for Ushijima already possesses his life’s necessities, most organic of which is his bestowed upon strength — the second of his comforts. 

They call him a monster, a beast. He supposes that in a way, he is one, a great white eagle even amidst birds of prey. His left reigns terror on the court, his height intimidates pedestrians on the streets, his strength is the pillar of his team. 

Ushijima is like a beast at the apex of mankind, an apex that Lady Luck has ordained for him, blessing him with strength and diligence.

But what people don’t realize is that on the misted, glorious summit, the eagle lives in a cage. It’s a gilded cage tailored to his kind, ornate with success and strength. It is majestic but a cage nonetheless.

And it is when his apartment is empty, his schedule marked “on break”, and he is sitting alone at the dining table on a rare docile Sunday afternoon, that Ushijima thinks that he sees with clarity. He sits in his usual seat — on the left — staring down at his hand, an appendage of monstrous power that has brought him all the achievement and fame that he yearns for. That is when Ushijima fathoms that perhaps at the end of the day, you are the only creature to bring comfort to this so-called success. 

You are his last creature comfort, the one that he finds harbour in from beginning to end, from null to eternity. And in his opinion, you are also the one he least deserves.

As he sits with his head in his hands, body hunched over the table, mind reminding his body to inhale and exhale, exhale and inhale, Ushijima thinks that he gets it now. When all is done and through, when volleyball no longer favours him and his strength ceases to obey him, how much longer will it be till you too take your final bow and leave this gilded cage for your inevitable freedom?

For the summit of monsters is no place for a little blue grey wren like you. Kind, pretty wrens don’t belong with the great whites of the skies, just as cursed children cannot be safe with stone-hearted mothers. In a perfect world, the two are not meant to meet. But Ushijima’s life is not perfect; it has never been so, and he is not one to seek out such a concept. 

He only wants to progress, to love, and to be safe. He wants to simply live with his creature comforts, to make the best out of what’s been given to him. After all, these creatures have served him well so far, so well that he has been at the top. And the top, Ushijima comes to find, is a lonely place. It is a place so vast, so deep, so empty that he wishes that he had been given the choice to not reach it at all. 

In times like these, Ushijima only wishes to be in a mother’s embrace, to be safe like he never was before.

“Toshi!”

He at long last exhales. The air is thin at the top. His body is still hunched over his knees, hands still cradling his face. Is it sick of him to find catharsis in the distress of your voice? 

He hears the slight rustle of a plastic bag...Right, you had gone to the store. That’s why he was alone on a Sunday afternoon. 

The rustling is followed by the shattering of glass...Oh, he is going to have to placate your definite guilt and remind you that he earns more than enough to cover for your mistakes. 

Heavy, frantic footsteps are nearing his way...Why are you running in the house? He has told you many times before that you are too clumsy for that. 

He feels your arms thrown around him, and realizes that you are now crying...But why? Ushijima, even in his current state, feels that it is a bit silly for you to attempt to envelope his hulking form with your small body. With wings that he could easily snap in half. 

Yet as he finds himself joining you with silent tears, he knows that these fragile arms of yours are the last line of defence to keep him from shattering into a million little pieces. He grasps onto the rhythm and rhetoric of your quiet sobs. You are murmuring over and over again, “Toshi, you’re okay. Toshi, I’m here”, a mantra that you believe would break this spell he has cast over himself. 

Emotions are not particularly warm or cold for Ushijima, but the small little bird keeping this monster together is hot, blisteringly hot. And he can only count upon his intrinsic rhetorics to process this. 

Indeed, the summit is a lonely place for the determined*.

“Why are you here?”

“You’re going to be okay, Toshi. I promise.”

“You should leave.”

He is tense with confusion, exasperation. Why were you saying these things? You need to leave. How can you not see that you are not free with him? He knows himself best. He is the monster of the gilded cage, and he is trying to keep the caged door locked from you. But you, with your sanguine mortality, have unlocked the door with your fabricated key. Even though you do not belong here, he wants to shout.

The axiom doesn’t make it past Ushijima’s id, and you shift. 

He now has you in his lap, arms around his neck, head nestled into his neck. You are patting him quietly. It is gentle, it is safe. 

Ushijima is a child again, back in a mother’s embrace. A mother, not his own of course. This is merely how he imagines it would have felt had he been blessed with a mother. This embrace is warm like that one summer, safe and warm. 

No, that’s not quite right. That summer had not been very warm at all. And it definitely had not been safe. He vividly remembers the catalyst: smudge marks on his school assignments two days in a row. It was a mistake, he had tried to explain, an honest, cursed mistake. But the woman holding him then could only love with frost and repulsion. And Ushijima remembers, summers since have never been warm again.

But this is a different summer with a different woman. She is not the one he calls “mother” nor the one he calls “grandmother”, and she is most certainly not someone who loved him like he had only known before. This is a woman who gave him not a cage but her company inside one. Willingly, too, even though she is weak. 

Weak, but so much stronger than he is. How many times had he wanted to just collapse in on himself, to become crushed by his own monstrous world? And how many times have you supported his hulking weight with your small hands and overwrought voice, fostering all the emotions he wouldn’t voice out? 

Too many times, Ushijima recognizes, that your words now equate your actions. 

And so he chooses to trust you, this woman who wraps her wings around the monster, not in fright, not in repulsion, but in love and determination. This little wren that warbles into the great eagle’s soul of her promised love and comfort in perpetuum. 

And so for the first time, he lets go. For volleyball is not a given, nor is his strength bequeathed. For naturally, Ushijima Wakatoshi is a creature of his comforts, just as naturally as you fought to be the creature for his comfort. 

“I need you.”

He feels a heart skip a beat. What is his or was it yours? He couldn’t say. The statement is wedged between the two of you, silent, weighty, capable of moving even mountains. 

You shift back so the two of you sat face to face, eye to eye. 

You give him a little smile. “I think so too. And it’s okay, Toshi.”

You take his hand, always the left, gently, surely, so as to not startle the cornered beast. 

“See, Toshi? This is your hand in mine. I holding it. It’s warm, right? Yes, just focus on this. Focus on your hand in mine.”

You keep your eyes on his as you cradle his left up to your lips, pressing the most tender of kisses on it as if it holds a precious life. And after twenty odd years of being on this earth and ruling these skies, Ushijima finally breaks through. 

Naturally, he is a creature of his comforts. But even in nature, monsters are free to choose their comforts. They can choose to be locked in the gilded cages of predestination, and they can choose to parade around the apex of their success, free from their own constraints. Monsters are lucky like that. 

His summers, too, can be different. Just like how this summer is unfamiliar but at long last, warm. This woman in his lap, telling him that “it’s okay”, she made it warm again. She who is gentle with his hand, she who treasures it, him, Wakatoshi. 

“Wakatoshi,” she’s calling to him, tenderly, achingly, lovingly. 

He sees clearly now. You are here, holding him, at the dining table of your shared apartment on a cloudless Sunday afternoon. You are looking at him lovingly, worry etched over your pretty face...But why? Ah, he is crying again. That’s why. But it’s okay. You are here catching each rivulet that spills down his cheeks. It’s okay because this time, you are here to hold him. 

That is right, he realizes. You are here with him. You love him. You choose him.

Ushijima, in turn, chooses you. He is willing to give it all to you, his cage, his comforts, his control of what’s tried and true. 

He gives up his all to trust you, who have stood on the summit with him all along, of your own free will, for your kingdom of freedom.

For above all else, Lady Luck favours choice not chosen. 

And so Ushijima starts by choosing you, his first creature comfort.

**Author's Note:**

>  _*Determined_ here is used in the sense of “determinism” as opposed to “being resolute”. Determinism is a philosophical theory that all, including moral choices, is determined by preexisting causes. It is often contrasted with the concept of “free will”.**
> 
> **Philosophy and Political Science specialists who have made it this far, please don’t flame me. I only wanted to write Ushijima x Reader fics :( but please educate me >.<


End file.
